Telelogic tool promises to extend requirements

By John K. Waters

05/17/2004

If you want your software development projects to
succeed, manage the requirements effectively, say analysts at Meta Group. Meta
surveys have found that approximately 60% to 70% of IT projects fail because of
poor requirements gathering, analysis and management (Research on
Requirements Realization and Relevance, 2003). The Standish Group came to a
similar conclusion in a survey in which 50% of the reasons given for project
success were related to well-managed requirements (Chaos Chronicles
III
, 2003).

''A strong requirements management process and supporting automated tools are
essential for successfully developing today's complex systems and software,''
said Matt Light, a research director at Gartner. ''Enhancing usability increases
acceptance of these tools with users and unlocks productivity gains for
organizations that adopt a requirements-driven approach.''

None of which comes as a surprise to Andy Gurd, director of product launches
at project life-cycle tools maker Telelogic. Gurd traces the proliferation of
requirements management products from their initial adoption in the aerospace
industries and the U.S. defense department, where standards are understandably
high, to a growing presence in more mainstream industries, such as
telecommunications, finance and automotive.

''The recognition of the importance of requirements
management has certainly been growing,'' Gurd told eADT
. ''It has grown out of practices in the aerospace
and defense department, and it has gained increasing importance and acceptance
in other industries, even in very mainstream IT in areas like banking and
insurance.''

Headquartered in Malmo, Sweden, with U.S. headquarters in Irvine, Calif.,
Telelogic has been a major player in this market for many years, and its Doors
product is one of the best-known brand names. Today, the company is set to
announce the release of the 7.1 version of its venerable requirements management
toolset. Analysts put Doors in the leadership spot in this market, though it is
flanked by products from software heavyweights IBM Rational and Borland. The
company claims more than 100,000 users in 1,300 companies around the world.

Telelogic bills Doors as a multiplatform, enterprise-wide system for
capturing, linking, tracing, analyzing and managing changes to information to
ensure a project's compliance to specified requirements and standards. The 7.1
release adds functionality that Gurd said was added based on customer demand.
Telelogic meets regularly with officials from its larger customers -- including
Motorola, Lockheed and Boeing -- which the company has organized into several
Leadership Counsels, to get feedback on its products. ''We practice what we
preach at those meetings,'' Gurd said. ''We actually go through a requirements
capture exercise, discuss the requirements, prioritize them, and then give our
customers a chance to talk to each other and share ideas. That's what formulated
many of the requirements for this release.''

Doors 7.1 is designed to improve project team collaboration and communication
throughout the development life cycle, and to help make the adoption of a
requirements-driven development approach quicker and easier.

Specifically, the 7.1 version adds:* A Test Tracking Toolkit for creating
links from requirements to tests; it also ensures that requirements are covered
by tests, generate test runs, record the results automatically and compare test
run results.

* A Document Compare feature that allows developers to compare two
requirements documents side-by side using an automatic redline feature to show
all differences.

* New Tables that allow developers to see the multiple properties of each
requirement within a single table cell, enabling more details to be viewed
directly in the tables themselves without making them open additional
windows.

* Support for more platforms, including Microsoft Windows 2003 Server and
Microsoft Office 2003.